Four Things

Zeph 3:2 "She has not obeyed His voice, she has not received instruction, she has not trusted in the Lord, she has not drawn near to her God."

Zephaniah was coming back to talk about the "oppressed city". (v1) This was God's chosen city, Jerusalem. And what did he say was her problem? Why was God telling him to warn this city? Because of four things that the people of the city did not do. They did not obey Him. They did not receive His instruction. They did not trust Him. And they did not draw near to Him

Four things that I need to pay attention to: Obey, be teachable, trust and draw near. All four actually go together…and it kind of works in reverse order.

If I draw near to God I am coming close to Him. This is really His heart. He wants me to be close to Him, to have a relationship with Him. He wants me to be with Him. What it indicates is that I love Him. If I want to draw near and be close, it is an indication that I enjoy His company.

If you were to ask me what my favorite place to be in this earth is right now I would tell you it is anywhere my wife is. I love her. And because I love her, I want to be with her. I want to be close to her, both in physical proximity as well as in how we think. I want there to be good communication. I want there to be a growing relationship. That is not unlike God. He loves us and He wants us to love Him. When we do, we will draw near. We will spend time with Him. We will talk to Him and we will listen to Him. (More on this later.)

As I draw near to God I will get to know Him better. As I get to know Him better, I will see what He is like. I will see that He is faithful and true and loving and trustworthy. As my relationship grows, my trust grows. As my trust grows, my teachability grows. I will listen to Him. I will gladly receive His instruction. I won't think that I know it all, but I will be humble and soak in all that He has to tell me.

And I will do it. I will obey. Obedience comes from listening and trust and relationship. It isn't something that God wants to force on me…it is something that should come naturally because of I draw near to God.

That was Jerusalem's problem. They had no relationship and frankly that broke God's heart. We will see later in the chapter what His heart for Jerusalem and really what His heart is for us.

For now, though, I need to remember these four things: Draw near to God and He will draw near to me. Relationship. When that happens I will trust Him more, listen to Him more and willingly obey Him. When I don't obey, it shows my relationship with Him is not very strong because I don't know Him well enough to trust Him and I will not listen to Him.

Something to think about.